1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device including an oxide semiconductor and a manufacturing method thereof.
In this specification, a semiconductor device generally means a device which can function by utilizing semiconductor characteristics, and an electrooptic device, a semiconductor circuit, and electronic equipment are all semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, semiconductor devices have been developed to be used mainly for an LSI, a CPU, or a memory. A CPU is an aggregation of semiconductor elements each provided with an electrode which is a connection terminal, which includes a semiconductor integrated circuit (including at least a transistor and a memory) separated from a semiconductor wafer.
A semiconductor circuit (IC chip) of an LSI, a CPU, or a memory is mounted on a circuit board, for example, a printed wiring board, to be used as one of components of a variety of electronic devices.
A technique for manufacturing a transistor by using an oxide semiconductor film for a channel formation region, or the like has been attracting attention. Examples of such a transistor include a transistor in which zinc oxide (ZnO) is used as an oxide semiconductor film and a transistor in which InGaO3(ZnO)m is used as an oxide semiconductor film.
Non-Patent Document 1 discloses a transistor including a stack of oxide semiconductors. However, in the structure disclosed in Non-Patent Document 1, the oxide semiconductor functioning as a channel is in contact with a silicon oxide film; thus, silicon, a constituent element of the silicon oxide film, might be mixed into the channel as an impurity. The impurity mixed into the channel causes degradation of the electrical characteristics of the transistor.